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Thursday, February 2, 2012

Tappety Tap Tap!

The saga continues....

Yesterday morning, I put up the last 12 taps, making 16 in total. Some of the trees were super eager to please and dripped immediately.

Some had to think about it, but then dripped willingly a little later. It seems I have one tree that's not doing much of anything. I drilled it's tap a little deeper this morning to give it another chance. If it doesn't do much again today, I'll pull it and find myself a juicier tree that's more willing to oblige.

On the other hand, two of my big beauties were more than willing to "give it up".

Hello! Three quarters of a gallon from each! That's production!

Don't you love my cheap-o method of collecting sap? I bought the spiles off of ebay--they were very inexpensive--but I couldn't afford any more of the nice sap buckets. So I collected milk gallons for months and a water gallon from who knows what and that's what I'm working with. I don't love it, though. Despite the fact that Mr. Mann from Backyard Sugarin' says that they'll just "stay on the spile", they don't. I have to jury-rig them like this:

Classy! They stay, though. That's all that counts. They are a real pain to remove, however.

Oh well. Today's take? Thought you'd never ask!

Bum da da da DUM!!!

5 gallons! Or really, 4 and 3/4, because yesterday's 1/4 gallon is in there somewhere too. I have 6 gallons total, which is almost a quart of syrup. Not bad.

Of course, yesterday, as I was checking my taps, I saw the man in the woods behind us lugging two full five gallon buckets away from his taps, but who am I to complain??? Right? Right?

So it's going well. But of course, this is the fun part. The hard part is boiling all this down. That's going to be some hard work.

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About Me

After years of talking the talk, I'm finally walking the walk--and have the boots to prove it.
Living on a beautiful piece of land in a small house, we are turning to the earth to provide for us and others. I am a "jane of all trades", working the land, tending to animals, and doing things that many people just don't do anymore. Teaching our children to be good stewards, and relearning the skills ourselves is our goal.